Page 29 of Shadow Burn

Her palm had a thin slice across the heel and two smaller nicks near the base of her fingers. He used the washcloth again. She flinched. There was glass grit embedded in one of the nicks.

“You can say ow,” he said. “Or curse. I know it stings.”

“I’m aware of my options.”

He looked up. She was watching him now, not the hall. Her face was still too pale, but the blank shock in her eyes had receded a little. Her control was coming back in pieces, and he could see her trying to assemble it around herself like armor. He wanted her to have it. He also wanted to keep the blanket around her shoulders and the chair under her until her hands stopped shaking.

He picked up the tweezers from the kit. “There’s a tiny piece of glass I need to remove.”

She held still. He removed the sliver, cleaned the cut, and wrapped gauze around her palm, noticing his breath had gone shallow.

“I should have fought harder,” she said. Her voice was barely above a murmur.

He stopped until she looked up at him. “You did well, Katherine.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

Jasper taped the gauze into place and smoothed the edge down with his thumb. “Enough to live.”

She looked at him for a long moment. Outside the laundry room, the house moved around them in low voices, radio static, the creak of floorboards under boots.

A shadow crossed the doorway, and Garrett appeared. “You bringing her to the compound?”

Katherine’s gaze sharpened at once. “Compound?”

Jasper began packing up the kit. “You can’t stay here. Shadow Point is the safest place for you.”

“Oh, right.” The crease returned. “Is that okay?”

“More than okay,” Jasper said.

Garrett nodded. “I’ve already let Vivi know, so a guest room will be ready.”

Katherine blinked, and seemed both relieved and worried. “I need clothes, shoes, my phone, if it still works. Priss’s carrier, her food, my document bag, my laptop…”

Jasper stood. “I’ll get them.”

“I can do it.”

The words came too quickly. Jasper heard the panic under them. He also saw the way her hand tightened on Priss, how her eyes had gone fixed and dark.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know where everything is.”

“You can tell me.”

Her spine stiffened under the blanket. “I said I can do it.”

Garrett looked from one of them to the other. “Let me check with Mallory first. I’m not sure he’ll let you into the bedroom yet.”

Jasper stepped back from the chair. “He’s more likely to let me do it. I have training with crime scenes.”

“You’re not picking out underwear for me, Jasper Perault!”

It was good to see her fired up. “There was nothing about that in the NDA.”

She swatted at him with her good hand. He chuckled.